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I'm just bumping this message, almost 14 years later, as we are very keen to have more candidates to be DNA tested. We need males bearing a relevant surname - PALIN/PAYLING/PALING/PAILING - with an established patrilineal connection to Nottinghamshire. Suitable bone fide candidates may qualify for a free DNA test (e.g. FTDNA Y-111 or Y-700).

We are also interested in people that have similar ancestry but don't bear this surname, as we may be able to make good inferences from autosomal results, even if very distant.  If you have already been DNA tested it would be useful to know on what platform (e.g. FTDNA, 23andMe, Ancestry, MyHeritiage) and if you have a GedMatch ID.

Many thanks.

  https://www.familytreedna.com/groups/pelan/about

I suspect that TNA possibly don't have enough staff to be able to cope with redactions and are just applying this blanket 115 year rule to avoid the issue.

Exactly, which is why I made the very same point earlier. Blanket rules are a result of resource constraints and the time limit applied is a result of the risk analysis (which would have been agreed by the MOD and TNA with full legal advice from both sides). 

Related, if the TNA has a 115-years-after-death rule, do you know why they have said that all the information in the service record is exempt until 2037? My great-uncle was born in December 1910, so 115 years from then would be 2025 - not 2037. Am I missing something?

The rule is definitely 115-years after date of birth.

I can only attempt some guesses; they looked at the record and saw something that pushes the timeline, they've looked at the wrong record or someone at TNA doesn't understand the rules.

It is certainly worth a query.
 

I can help fill in that gap in your knowledge.

I chose my words carefully when I said "there is no other legislation that I am aware of that grants a right to access the otherwise embargoed data of a deceased person". You have not filled that in but merely cited GDPR which is about rights of living people to access their personal data. It does not grant a right to access other people's data whether they are living or deceased.

The right to access other people's data in a governmental record context comes from FoI as you say but the TNA have clearly cited the "breach of confidence" exception as their concern. This is broader than (but includes) medical records and data that would otherwise have been in the the scope of GDPR were the data subject still alive. The obligation of confidence could still remain because it could relate to another party.

You may find the MOD was more pragmatic, and I would agree, but each organisation is entitled to assess its own attitude to risk bearing in mind the resources available to it and any legal protection that it might have, sui generis or otherwise. They may simply feel that they don't have the resources to redact records to an acceptable level of risk. This is not to say that there aren't ways of working around it but it would be at some financial cost.

It isn't an irrational position and I can see their legal team making this argument.